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At Christmas, 1915, the Congress again met under the presidency of Sir S. P. Sinha, who was in 1908 the first Indian appointed to be a member of the Governor General’s Executive Council, the British Cabinet in India. In the words of an Indian magazine, the speech delivered by him as coming from a man who has obtained “wealth, high position and honour” from the British connection and who has been “in the inner Councils of the Government,” is most significant in its ideals as well as demands. His ideal of a government for India has been borrowed from Abraham Lincoln of the United States, viz., “ Government of the people, by the people, for the people.” He says:

“What I do say is that there should be a frank and full statement of the policy of Government as regards the future of India, so that hope may come where despair holds sway and faith where doubt spreads its darkening shadow, and that steps should be taken towards self-government by the gradual development of popular control over all departments of Government and by removal of disabilities and restrictions under which we labour both in our own country and in other parts of the British Empire.

Among the definite reforms and remedial and progressive measures which he demands are:

“Firstly—The grant of commissions in the army and military training for the people.

“Secondly—The extension of local self-government.